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While in Paris. But Edward Hallett Carr. on the strong liberal values that he cherished and which he hoped would return the world to its prewar state of peace and serenity. who. Carr was born in 1892 to upper middle class parents."3
There is no doubt of his views on the other new institution born
of the First World War."2 Carr recalled in an unpublished memoir.1 His choice of a foreign service career was. founded. that the revolution should be "strangled in its cradle. he believed. in his own way. he refused to write about the Soviet Union in anything other than realist terms. for it gave him a unique position from which to observe the entrance of two new actors on the international stage. and he received the standard education of male children of that era. was a polymath. led to a scholarship to study classics at Cam bridge. were very strong.124
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historians. He joined the Foreign Office instead.H. After his training at the Foreign Office. He immediately volunteered for active service but was deemed physically unfit for the front. Critics have suggested that Carr reacted in much the same way as his colleagues when faced with the appearance of the first of these actors. namely the emergence of the communist Soviet state after 1917. A secondary education at Merchant Taylor's. one of the public schools of medium prestige. blind and stupid. E. and his convictions. One author goes so far as to note that Carr held the opinion. for a while it even seemed as if the prewar golden age was going to be successfully restored: by the mid-nineteen twenties the world economy had largely been rebuilt and even the Soviet Union seemed to be retreating back into capitalist economics
. founded on the seemingly irreconcilable pillars of liberalism and historical realism. and he suffered because of his conviction in this matter. But just as Carr completed his university degree the comfort able liberal world ofEdwardian Britain was shattered by the outbreak of the First World War. Carr recalled years later. Carr's first major assignment was to the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. in common widi the majority of the Foreign Office. that he had realized at the time that the Petrograd revolution was not a historical accident. fortuitous. rather that it was a lasting change and that the Western reaction to the nascent Soviet Union was "narrow. however. Carr eagerly watched the birth of the League of Nations. was by that point no stranger to controversy. where he was sequestered by a small British committee whose mandate was to examine "the Russian problem". Indeed.

the Russian anarchist and founder of nihilism. He learned Russian."6 Riga was at that time a stop-offpoint for travellers coming to and from Moscow. and soon began to immerse himselfnot in the intricacies and excesses ofSoviet politics but in the elegance and sophistication of Russian literature and philosophy. "was then to Soviet Russia what Hong Kong is to China . to the intransigence of the fascist nations. Carr became fascinated with the philosophy and politics ofRussians exiled by the Czars for their dangerous views. by the late 1920s. ofwhich it was to be the principal instrument. In 1925 he was posted to Riga. the capital of Latvia which. more than any other institution. and Carr picked up a great deal of news about die Soviet Union.
..which soon led him into darker circles. Carr became worried about what he felt were signs ofdanger. In particular. and ofthe role ofthe "satisfied Powers" (namely Britain and France) in the affairs ofthe League itself.news from the mighty giant next door filtered through into the bridge-parties and excited endless chatter. as then was vogue to do.Edward Hallett Carr 125
with the New Economic Policy. and quickly drew a parallel between the revolutionary spirit of the nineteenth century and the
Revolution of 1917. these words represent a fundamentally heterodox view of both the role of the League of Nations in interwar interna tional affairs. Carr's first foray into this world was a comprehensive reading of Dostoevsky . Created in a mood of burning faith in human progress..5 But what caused such a basic shift in the philosophy ofan essentially
liberal Victorian individual?
In the mid 1920s Carr became increasingly absorbed in Russian culture and history. was overtaken by the reaction from the brief interlude of optimism of 1918-1919 to the static complacency ofthe 'twenties. By 1942 Carr had tied the deficiencies of the League to the meddling of the Great Powers and not.in Russian . initiated in 1921. Yet.
He noted some years later that the League of Nations quickly
degenerated from being a force that could achieve agreat deal ofgood to one that relied increasingly on conservatism and complacency:
The League ofNations. In this respect he was almost twenty years ahead ofhis time. as one historian has pointed out.4
For their time. it was quickly perverted into a tool of the satisfied Powers. He began to study the writings of Mikhail Bakunin.

126
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When examining the work of another Russian writer. Although Carr published a book on Dostoevsky in 1931 and another on the "Romantic Exiles. namely that the Russian Revolution did not simply "happen. philosophy entered into their calculations only insofar as one could call Marx a philosopher. In 1930 his Foreign Office career took him back to London. as they were written either on the eve of or during the Second World War. It should be pointed out that.
He threw himself into a flurry of writing. a shift first apparent in his works on international relations. although flawed in its own right. All but one of his works on the subject are either flawed or dated. his writings on international relations are certainly the weakest. published in 1937. which resulted in a book on Bakunin. He entered the world ofacademia in 1937. in 1933.
The "exotic world" to which he had been exposed produced a
dramatic shift in Carr's political philosophy. The Twenty Years'Crisis. since historians had hitherto examined the origins of the Russian revolution in purely political terms.that Carr's unorthodoxy was a little too much for the Foreign Office). Chernyshevsky. is. This interpretation of the 1917 revolution was truly original."8 This outlook only strengthened theauraofunorthodoxy which Carr projected. and it soon became clear that the Foreign Office was just too staid and conservative for his tastes (although one suspects that the reverse was probably true . But it was not the same Carr of five years before. Carr concluded that he "came nearer than any preMarxist Russian writer to anticipating the doctrines which the Russian Revolution was one day to make its own. and several books on international relations. and would remain so until the day he died. Instead. subsequently he was forced temporarily to abandon Russian history." as he called them. he was demonstrating an extremely important lesson. He was still a liberal by temperament. still considered to be a classic textbook on the subject of international relations. where he worked on German affairs." nor that it was devoid of a non-Marxist philosophical background. and in particular
. but intellectually he had acquired an outlook based on the "exotic world of nineteenth century Russian ideas."7 This is not to say that Carr fell into the oft-repeated error ofassuming that the Russian Revolution and its autocratic aftermath were simply continuations of some characteristic peculiar to Russian history that requiredthe existence of autocracy.9 The one exception. accepting the Chair in International Politics at Aberystwyth. ofall Carr's work.

"11
Carr allowed his realism free rein in The Twenty Years'Crisis. uncompromising realism. He wrote that:
[By 1925] the Ruhr invasion had brought little profit to France. and had left her perplexed as to the next step. and is still being used today. over fifty years after its publication.12
. He argued that the Locarno Treaty of 1925 was simply the result of power politics between France and Germany. Carr began to show many of the characteristics which grew out ofhis work on Russian intellectual history. not only because of its absolute failure to fulfil its mandate. and a treaty wh ich had not been possible two years before. and themselves withdrawing into a form of moralism in which right behaviour in interna tional relations became identified with respect for the sanctity of treaties. Without doubt Carr was disillusioned by the failure ofthe League.. and. however. seeking scapegoats for the collapse of their dream in the 'power politics' practised by the revisionist states. Carr argued that "the exposure by realist criticism of the Utopian edifice is the most urgent task ofthe moment in international
thought. peace with the maintenance of the status quo. and the hopes ofthe League with the interests of Britain and France. was now welcome to both. such as Arnold Toynbee and Sir Alfred Zimmern. above all. and would not have been possible five years later. There was a certain degree of contempt for the League of Nations. He was also angry at those Utopian thinkers. still feared the military supremacy ofFrance. who
became embittered.Edward Hallett Carr 127
on international bargaining. but also because of the ungraceful and illogical refusal ofits proponents to accept any blame for its failure to avert war. It was the psychological moment when French fear ofGermany was about equally balanced by Germany's fear ofF ranee. Carr's realism is not difficult to trace. and which mark his later work on the Soviet Union: direct and objective argument. and hankered after a guarantee. In this work. Germany might one day be powerful again.. [But] Ger many.10
In The Twenty Years' Crisis the central issue in the study of international relations was the conflict between utopianism and realism.

The Twenty Years' Crisis thus
remains a highly relevant work. While Carr successfully demolished the Utopian conception ofinternational relations he was unable to replace it with
. till die closing years of the nineteenth century. usually from the standpoint oftheir own country. Carr summed up this point in his characteristically incisive fashion: "if
every prospective writer on international affairs in the last twenty years had taken a compulsory course in elementary strategy. Carr's development of a theoretical framework to explain the bargaining process between states still remains not only valid but also
acts as "a powerful and lasting stimulus for students of international relations. If their own country had gained some advantage from a treaty. No previous historian had adopted Carr's realist method of drawing up a "balance sheet"
and determining the interests of each party and weighing them against the other. Carr. for no one. this passage is extremely important. had written in these terms before. Indeed. disadvantage resulted.128
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There may seem to be nothing particularly profound in these observations. Nevertheless. The Twenty Years'Crisis'^ still a fundamen tally limited work. both for the practice and theory of international relations history.' which was given the new science by Adam Smith himselfand not abandoned in favour of the abstract 'economics' even in Great Britain itself."13 The other advance Carr initiated in the study of international relations was an insistence that the area now known as "strategic studies" also played a very important role in diplomatic history. Much confusion would be saved by a general return to the term 'political economy.H. He was the first writer to emphasize the importance of economic analysis in the study ofinternational relations: "economic forces are in fact political forces. owes its genesis to the work of E. however. the result could usually be found in the skill of their negotiators."14 Strategic studies. a technique which considerably advanced and refined the field of international relations study. If. Diplomatic historians had examined treaty diplomacy from one point ofview only. reams of nonsense would have remained unwritten. especially about something as honour-bound as a treaty. it was due to some nefarious hood
winking scheme on the part ofthe other party. historian or political scientist. But Carr made even greater contributions to international studies.. as Roger Morgan has pointed out."15 Despite its relevancy. which today forms a veritable branch ofstudy in its own right..

it limited the practice of international relations as well. persisted in his great work on die Soviet Union. deserves some
attention. He often determined the acceptability of a series of figures by mentally comparing them with another. in the end. since he was forced to use official Soviet documents for much of his primary source material. were ambivalent as
to die usefulness of Soviet primary source material. to good use. Carr began to work seriously on die project. Carr. In his diary of 17 October. He could scan a pile of press clippings and Soviet
government releases and quickly separate the wheat from the chaff. memorized set. Carr recorded that he "[s]aw Daniel Macmillan and broached die Russian project. however. was able to put his editorial talent. bodi dien and now. Carr back to where he started from: to power itself." and. while by no means unique. Many historians.19
He could do so thanks to an encyclopaedic memory. The Soviet history.16 As Hans Morgenthau points out."17 This problem. learnt at the Foreign Office. economic. as he admitted. he was unable to construct a moral structure upon which such a conception could rest. unresolved in Carr's work on international relations. not until late 1944 did he discuss the subject with another person. he railed. Although Carr had been considering the history for a number of years. although Carr desperately attempted to solve this problem. the development ofa moral construct was not simply an intellectual problem limited to die study of international relations. and set normative limits. to the struggle for power on the international scene
[brought] Mr. for it is a reflection of the historian's scholarly habits. Morgenthau argues that die "search for principles which can give moral meaning. In particular. Accord ing to Carr. accepting an assistant editorial position with die London Times in 1938. when Macmillan (of die publishing house) expressed support. would be no small task. If the figures did not
. If. especially as he had taken on duties in addition to his post at Aberystwyth. die consistent application of realism excluded moral judgment. His
Foreign Office training stood him in good stead. Carr began to think of writing a history of the Soviet Union.18 Carr's methodology. because he was forced to recognize that the most powerful international actors created and defined die practice of international relations. or military.Edward Hallett Carr 129
a tenable realist framework. he realized. Even as his output of material on international relations peaked. then the only basis of international relations would be power: political.

where more. Carr claimed he had learned by observ ing A. But he believed that his greatest quality was his ability "for cutting through a load ofnonsense and getting straight to the point. published between 1950 and 1953. an accident of history. Housman. be rectified. there was a great deal of "nonsense to cut through. whom he felt possessed "the most powerful intellectual machinery" he had "seen in action. He was attacked for demonstrating that there was a philo sophical . At this time the Korean War was raging.20 So Carr was. Carr more often than not discarded them. he could be pedantic when he wanted to be.basis to the Soviet
determining the veracity of a single footnote could take a day or
system. die rest of the Western world)
desperately needed an entrenched position of moral rectitude from
which to battle the communist menace. signs that other scholars
simply railed to notice."21 And in terms of Soviet history. to a lesser extent. The Bolsheviks were no more than an unhappy mischance which could.as opposed to a merely ideological . Carr was not some kind of superhuman encyclopaedia. but in the paranoid climate which McCarthyism produced.22 The cause ofCarr's persona non grata status was his insistence on divorcing ideology from Soviet
history. using tell-tale signs as his guide.130
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coincide." As the Cold War deepened. incompatible? What was the motivation for producing incorrect figures? By using this method Carr often followed leads to consider able lengths. Later in his career he employed the daughter of his longtime friend Isaac Deutscher as a research assistant." which. extraordinarily painstaking and indeed perhaps a litde overzealous when researching his work. when necessary. It was easier for historians of die Soviet Union at this time to show that the Russian Revolution was an aberration. and the United
States (and. a relationship which quickly developed into one of equal collaboration. he was unable to gain a grant from the Ford Foundation and instead had to rely on funds generated by a lecture tour. with characteristic modesty. Carr travelled to the United States to examine the vast repository of documents there.E. Tamara Deutscher remembers the other side of Carr's research. But occasionally he would pursue the matter further: Why were the figures. the intellectual climate of Soviet studies deteriorated correspondingly. The Bolshevik Revolution. Despite his large capacity for detailed research. by diligent pressure from the United States. Carr's three-volume history. or facts. swept away the notion that the revolution
.

Western democratic principles. Marat. for the West. If we overemphasize its Rus with no lessons. Carr argued that the revolutionary tradition in Russia harkened back to the philosophy of the nineteenth century and that it Marxism. by no means eradicated it. Belinsky. The balance is important. we as sume that a Western revolution pursuing aims akin to those of the Russian revolution would necessarily have
sian aspect. we treat it as an event in a faraway country
views seem to me fallacious.
parliamentarydemocracy and constitutional government proclaimed
and despotic power. It was an event in Russian his tory. or Franklin. or no positive lessons. The Russian revolution reflected these incompatibilicies. or at least acknowledged. Nechaev and Chernyshevsky. In the preface to a collection of his essays he wrote:
Several of these essays relate to the incompatibilities existing before the Revolution between the Russian and Western traditions.23
taken the same course and incorporated the same ele ments of a specifically Russian background. It had no use for the Western principles of
. only to be hijacked by the autocratic Bolshe
Carr pointed out that to accept the standard interpretation of the revolution meant that the Russian revolutionaries would have had to have embraced.
was accidental. If we underemphasize its Russian characteristics. But this was clearly not the case. but it was also an event of worldwide significance. who advocated an entirely different (and non-Marxist) version of Utopia. but were instead rooted in the works ofBakunin. Both these
instead that the mass movement created by the February Revolution was "inspired by a wave of immense enthusiasm and by Utopian visions ofthe emancipation ofmankind from the shackles ofa remote
He refused to apply a Western standard to the revolution. Many Westerners believed that the Russian Revolution had begun by embracing democratic principles. arguing
by the Provisional Government.Edward Hallett Carr 131
viks. But Carr really parted company from received wisdom when he insisted that "parliamentary democracy" was never a goal of even the most liberal revolutionary."24 Carr then went on to demon strate that the "Utopian visions" were not born of the writings of Voltaire. while to a large degree supplanting that tradition.

Carr gave up on the lesser lights and focused his study on those wielding power. While it is true that Carr occasionally over-reached himself in attempting to balance the bad with some good. The Interregnum. Soviet Studies. It is quite possible that Morgenthau's description that Carr had been trapped in an Odyssean search for that moral basis. did individual leaders begin to vie for position in the succession struggle and hence become individual factors in the overall struggle for power. very few in number: the Bolsheviks initially attempted to govern through a series ofnewly-established committees and state organs. The powerbrokers were. in fact. This
Despite Carr's emphasis on the particularly Russian character of the Revolution of 1917 and his perceptive conclusions concerning the intellectual well-springs of the revolutionaries. not until the fourth volume of the history. moreover. Not until this period. Indeed.132
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mains curiously glacial and distant when it deals with the individuals involved. is indeed correct. always leading back to the simple exercise of power. did individual Bolshevik leaders assume any importance for Carr. there
. If Carr was interested in the loci of power as a means to explain the course of the revolution. apart from a very small group— most notably Lenin and Trotsky — remained in the background. and [was] also a great
Westernizer. Carr insisted in proceeding along purely realistic lines of inquiry. then it is not surprising that he concentrated on Bolshevik organizations rather than Bolshevik leaders in the first volumes of his history. Carr wrote an obituary for die journal
insistence was galling to many American historians. who accused him of being an "apologist for Stalin. In The Bolshevik Revolution. his history re
When Stalin died in 1953."26 But any thoughtful reading of Carr's work quickly demonstrates the fallacy ofthis charge. which covers the period immediately following Lenin's death. in which he noted that Stalin "was the most ruthless despot that Russia had known since Peter.
Despite the obvious problems this approach engendered. he never became apologetic. And to disregard moral considerations and judgments may not be the ideal approach to writing history. even of human ity."25 This criticism is com pletely valid but perhaps somewhat harsh ifone recalls the difficulties Carr previously encountered when attempting to derive a moral basis for realist history. and individual leaders."27 He later wrote of the costs of Stalin's drive for industrialization that "to anyone reared in the liberal tradition. A sympathetic critic notes that "from a moral point ofview it denotes the absence ofsympathy and compassion.

Regarding Berlin's thesis. one suspects. subsequently reprinted as the historiographical work What is History?. Carr was merely arguing for . and Stalins of history.29 In historiographical terms. i..Edward Halleti Carr 133
is something mechanical and rather repugnant in this weighing of human lives against material advantage. Carr argued convincingly that it was wrong for a historian to harbour emotions about any historical figure and still produce good. is not necessarily reflective of any sympathy with Marxism politically. Through his entrenched realism. Carr objected especially to the view that historicism. and encourages historians to evade their supposed obligation . referring to him as "the genius of destruction. Carr argued that it was unacceptable to hate Stalin simply because he was Stalin. Carr devoted great effort to a defence ofMarx."31 And yet. but it is reflective of his shared sympathy with Marx historically. Carr set out to demolish Marx as a political thinker. which consisted oflittle more that propaganda pieces against the Soviet Union."28 These are not. not of construction. not Marx the political thinker. analytical work on the subject. published in 1934. Carr attacked Karl Popper's and Isaiah Berlin's arguments against historicism on very specific grounds and for very specific reasons. Karl Marx the historian. the words ofan apologist.unusually for a British historian of the period . Napoleons.. at least. he attacked not only his critics' work. coupled with his refusal to amplify the murderous excesses of both system and leader.. several scholars have wondered about the nature of Carr's politics. that historical realism must
. since his death. are simply reflections ofthis historicism and moral
neutrality.. but the very basis upon which their work was founded. though. it is quite clear that Carr made this remark in jest. Carr's sympathy to wards the achievements of either Stalin or the Stalinist system.
This point is important." a statement which was quickly seized upon.. Although he called himselfan "amateur Marxist. In particular.the primacy of historicism over morally judgmental history. in his 1961 Trevelyan lectures. implies a denial of human free will. Indeed. then. "by explaining human actions in causal terms . In his Karl Marx: A Study in Fanaticism. Carr had very little time for Marxist theory. But the issue ofapologetics was probably not the real concern ofthe historians who questioned Carr's objectivity. to pronounce moral condemna tion on the Charlemagnes."32 Carr's defence of Marx.30 Early in his career. for. One would like to believe that the costs of progress can be measured in less brutal terms.e.

This curious mix of values and beliefs . and remember the decorations and fireworks.the master
of realpolitik on the one hand. He longed for the
simplicity and the certainty ofhis youth. Carr's politics were simply those of the outsider. He did not think the young were either more or less 'moral' or 'serious' than they had been in his days. a fact which he successfully concealed from his readers for over fifty years. but die apolitical character of his work on Soviet
narrowest sense of the term. Deutscher notes that Carr "was enthusiastic about the admission of women to his college . Nevertheless. Carr began to reminisce more about die past. He was profoundly disturbed by the increasing gulf be tween rich and poor in capitalist society. He positively relished his position as "wild man in the wings. and all bemoaning of'our permissive society* he treated as nothing but cant. I was on a family holiday at Exmouth. postponed from June for die removal of his appendix.134
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take precedence over moralistic and judgmental history.."33 In the final years of his life. Indeed. guarantees him a position of greatness as a historian.
history." but this political orientation did not make him eccentric or remote. he was very progressive in his views.free education. Why could we not go on living forever in that innocent world?"34 This charming and somewhat wistful sentiment provides a highly revealing insight into Carr's character. Carr could be defined as an economic socialist. he was a liberal
at heart. health care and welfare .is all the more remarkable when one
considers how successful Carr was at divorcing each element from
die other in his work. and continually advocated the establishment and expansion of a social "safety net" .but only in the very
In terms of a political label. Carr could be a ruthless realist in his work. and for die strong Victorian liberal values with which he associated..to protect the poor. Carr could therefore be classified as a Marxist historian . Tamara Deutscher recalls that he was extremely enthusiastic about die younger generations as they arrived at Cambridge (where he held a fellowship from 1955 until his death almost thirty years later). 80th anniversary of the Coronation of King Edward VII.
. But even this description is inadequate.a measure long overdue in his judgement. In the final analysis. which his realist approach helped produce. He wrote to Deutscher a few weeks before he died: "9 August 1982. the yearning for the certainty of liberalism on the other .

1987)." 1022 23 Carr." in From Napoleon to Stalin and Other
29E." Soviet Studies 5 (July. 120 33 Deutscher. Also.136
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"Haslam. Despite the different title. "E. Carr. "Stalin. published
25 Walter Laqueur. What is History? (New York. as is so often the case. I may have a hidden preference for the English idiom in which I grew up. this work is merely a synopsis ofCarr's fourteenvolume history. 31 E. The Russian Revolution From Lenin to Stalin.A Personal Memoir. viii 24 E.A Personal Memoir. 1979). 86
. 2 28 Carr.
27E.H. Carr and the History of Soviet Russia.H." 84. and soon
Essays. over the German-American." 1024
in 1950.H. 301 32 Carr. The Fate ofthe Revolution. "Preface. taken out of context. rev'd ed. 1964). "E. 1953). See Deutscher. and the latter date ofpublication. (New York. The full statement was: "I am very much an amateur Marxist." 85-6 34 Ibid.H.H. 3. 1934).
Carr . 101-102
get out of my depth." in From Napoleon to Stalin and Other Essays." hardly the words ofan avowed revolutionary. "The Legacy ofStalin.H. "E. Carr . What is History?. The views represented in this work are no different form those he expressed in the first edition ofvolume one. Carr.. Carr and the History of Soviet Russia.H.H. Carr. 97-100 30 This remark was. 120 26 Haslam. 19171929 (London. Carr. "E. KarlMarxiA Study in Fanaticism (London.